


summer nights

by sllikeht



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Jane has no powers, Love takes time, Slow ass burn, i guess, just Max and jane having a good time, this is like normal life au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-12 19:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12966576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sllikeht/pseuds/sllikeht
Summary: "Jane wasn’t made of the same material as everyone, she had constellations inside of her. All Max wanted was to reach for those stars"Jane and Max spend the summer together and discover love and how powerful their feelings can be.





	1. first day of summer

The day had arrived.

Sweaty palms, tired sighs and longing for some cold air. Short pants, sandals and technicolor graphic t-shirts. Bikes were out and everyone on the suburbs were cleaning their pools.

Summer was here. But not only that. Last day of school was too, and with it the nervousness within every child waiting impatiently to get out of the building and start running recklessly, without any kind of responsibility. 

Max wasn’t nervous. Max wasn’t excited. The heat invading her veins wasn’t beating as fast as everyone else’s, and her mind was not distracted by thoughts of clear water and short nights. Her friends weren’t gonna be there anyway. They all had either summer camp or family travels around the country. She was gonna be so alone, and just thinking of a wasted summer made her skin tremble. It was not like she couldn’t have fun by herself, she had spent enough summers up in the attic playing with dust, but now she got used to company and to smiles, and to have that taken away was just cruel. 

Jane was not going away though. Max and Jane were never the best kind of friends though. 

Jane was special. She had never been the warm kind, and surely she wouldn’t make an exception with Max. Very few words, long cold stares, judging eyes. But there was something different to her. Something real, perhaps. She felt like a dream, but also like the most tangible thing to exist. A mix between realities, a miracle of sensations. The fact she barely talked to Max just fed her with more fantasies about what she could be. 

Someone who definitely knew Jane was Mike. They were very close, and even though she would not admit it, Max longed for that closeness, for that kind of true intimacy. Their relationship was not sibling like, nor it was partner like either. There was something else to them, something much deeper and carefully built. Max had asked Mike about Jane multiple times. About her thoughts, about her worries. About the thick wall she had imposed Max, about why she was so distant. But there was never a definitive answer, just vague words and spilled wonders. Wonder why they were like that. What had she done, anyway? But there was nothing she could do now. It was summer, her feelings were boiling to the point of melting and there were months of loneliness ahead. 

But one day, she talked.

Max was sitting alone in a bench, feet where the thighs should be, almost burnt cigarette between her lips. She was adding an abstract sharpie drawing to the back of the skate when Jane appeared.

“Hey” she whispered, sitting next to her. Max jumped a little to the voice, and almost dropped the cigarette.

“Didn’t hear you coming” 

“Didn’t want you to” 

Max skipped a beat with the comment, and tried to make herself look calm. Jane looked at her, with those serene, dark eyes she had. Max gazed back and felt a knot inside her stomach. 

“So what are you doing around here?” she asked, trying to be someone smart again, someone who could talk properly and not look like a melting mess. 

“I thought I could see you” Jane played with the cord of her walkman “it’s a good day so why not hang out”

“Yeah, that seems reasonable” she took the cigarette and sucked in the last breath before throwing it to the ground. Jane got up and stepped on it, making sure it was completely dead.

“Hopper does that all the time. Says it’s to prevent fire” she said, seeing how Max was looking at her. Max smiled. Things like these made it clear that Jane was just as human as any other. Dream like, but human. Little things that filled the boiler inside of her. Jane sat down again, and looked into what Max was drawing. 

“What’s that?” she said, touching the hardwood. Her nails were painted dark purple.

“I’m not too sure” Max closed the sharpie and looked at the piece, which made her realize how dangerously close Jane was to her. She could almost smell her perfume. Lavender. Blinking twice and feeling the wood under her fingertips made her go back to reality. But just before she was about to talk, a soft and cold sensation grew over her hands. Jane’s fingers pressing hers, taking her, holding her. She was trying to set aside the hand to look at the skateboard. Blink one, two, three, four times. It was Jane, why the sudden rush of blood and sweat? 

“It looks cool” Jane said in a breath. Max smiled again. Millions of thoughts swirling inside a boiling room, she was afraid her heart could be heard outside her chest. 

Max dropped the skate on the ground and got on top of it. Quickly, Jane went next to her and grabbed her by the waist. This felt normal. It felt like the sun rising or the touch of books. Jane asked once Max to teach her to use the skateboard and, sometimes, when they were with the rest of the boys but the rest of the boys weren’t really there, Max would let Jane use the skateboard, and it made everything clearer. They didn’t need no words to talk, no signs. They were all thought and wonder. 

Jane wasn’t made of the same material as everyone, she had constellations inside of her. All Max wanted was to reach for those stars. 

“You ready?” Max asked, putting one foot on the ground to start running. 

“Always” her arms tightened around the waist, and Max knew everything boiling inside was soon going to be released. She still didn’t know what it could be, but it was strong. 

Jane was special. She had her own way of existing, a mysterious aura surrounding everything she touched. Max and her were never too close, but she knew that, somehow, this would change. 

Heat called for love and they were always hungry for some.


	2. a shining lake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they talk a little, there's a flashback, and finally something happens

Running was easier than talking, and both Max and Jane knew this very well. 

“You good back there?” 

“Yes, I'm fine” 

Jane rested her chin on Max's shoulder, and suddenly the world spinned faster.

This was alright. Sweet summer breeze against their cheeks, sun heating up the dry asphalt, the silence of a resting neighborhood that was too tired to care, distant echoes of screaming children. They were once children like those who now would cheerfully play in the park. Almost five years ago, when Max arrived and everything was new and everyone was rude except for those weird kids who played dungeons and dragons. Lucas was the first one to talk, and then the rest followed. In Max's eyes, Lucas always seemed like a natural leader. He and his smart words and smart looks. There was a time where she almost loved him too much, just to realize there was not a “too much" for them. They all felt too much, too strong, too real. The whole group was just a blend of pure emotions and dysfunctional words. Running was easier than talking, but so was kissing and laughing. They were never too good talkers, but it was a known fact they were all great lovers. So in the end Max just accepted how much she loved him and how much she loved everyone else too. That group was special, for it didn't care to show their love, and Max was filled with love and passion. She just needed someone to share it with. 

“Where are we going?” Jane talked, after seeing how Max skipped the mall where teens usually went to stare at time and steal memories. 

“To Hopper's” 

“I thought we were gonna hang out” a tone of slight desperation escaped her words, and Max almost worried about it. 

“I thought” she doubted for three seconds exactly “I thought we could go to the lake. It's too hot to be out” 

“Oh, okay. So we're going to pick a bathing suit?” 

“Yeah”

Max could hear Jane smile. Her muscles contracting and her hair touching the soft skin and tissue, her lips pressing against each other and a slight fraction of air coming out of her nose. She knew her too well to be acceptable. 

“There's not necessity for that tho" Jane said.

“What? Why?” a rush of blood and Max was again feeling her most deepest thoughts “are you gonna bathe on your-”

“I'm wearing one already” calm and then suffocation. Jane held tighter into her. 

“Oh, right" she needed a cigarette. 

 

There was a point in the way where two people mounted on a skateboard under the 11am sun was too warm to handle, so they just went with walking. The lake was five minutes away now. Three summers before they would always go to the lake. Freshman year had finally finished, and dreams of a bright future were taking shape inside their heads. 

Mike leaded the group, Jane sitting with him on the bike. Behind was Will, followed by Lucas and Dustin. A few meters back, where she couldn't be heard, Max rode her rusty bike, tiredly. Noise surrounded them. Birds chirping and the soft waving of leaves against air, even the light could be heard inside that soundless day. 

“So I thought we could take turns” said Dustin, following the conversation they had a few minutes back about camping or a road trip or some activity that didn't involve parents “I would be first, cause of course y'all would fall asleep immediately” 

“El and I could be second” Mike answered.

“No way” Jane's voice sounded fiery, filled with emotion. It always did that. Max would know “I'd be sleeping. There's no chance I'm staying awake for nothing” 

“Now that's a thing you and Max have in common” Lucas laughed. To the sound of her name, Max raised her head. They weren't looking back. Her name was just a thing to say, they weren't actually calling. But she did saw Jane tilting her head a little, smiling a little, breathing a little. Her heart pounded to the rhythm of a cloudless sky and a lazy wind that rustled carelessly through the trees, and in that right moment she knew everything changed. 

 

The lake was there, empty and shining. 

“Well” Jane started “I don't know about you, but I'm gonna bathe right away”

“Oh, yeah, I was too” the sentence ended in some strange sigh, where the 'too’ was barely a sound, not a word. Jane took off her shirt, and beneath it was the softest chest adorned with a bikini top and some moles here and there. Jane's curls wiggled with the wind, and Max felt everything within her starting to move. Since when was this a good idea? In the next second, Jane was already inside the water splashing around. 

“Come on Max!” she shouted, with that fiery tone she had. At least that's how Max heard it. Two blinks and she was there too. 

The water was cold, but not too much, just enough to cease the warmth accumulated inside their skins. Jane was smiling so much at this point it almost seemed normal. It's not like she didn't usually smile, but this kind of smile had something in it. Some sort of trueness, some sort of love. It made Max's heart dance like a bell. Magic. 

Jane splashed around, laughing. She loved water, and she loved summer. She loved heat, not having to go to school, being able to sleep until lunch time and thinking about her friends and only that. Max knew this because Mike knew this, and because she had observed Jane enough to know it. At first she thought it was wrong. To observe a girl, to know her so well without even really knowing her, to have such desires, the ones that involved skin and lips and sighs and sights. The kind of dreams where touch and words were the same thing and reality distorted into smiles and kisses in the neck. How could that be wrong? Why would it be wrong? Wasn’t love supposed to be the best thing, the merriest? And then again, was that really love? As far as she was concerned, a girl could not love that way, it was just not possible. At the end of the day, the only thing clear was that awful yet blissful feeling Jane made Max feel. That heart wrenching feeling, where your guts crushed down and your brain turned to juice; where her feet forgot to walk and her lips burned with desire and misery; where everything was blurry and tears would die in her cheeks. 

And yet there she was. Smiling, so splendid and distant. A deep thought invaded Max, a thought she had for a long time now. A wrong thought, but also a sweet thought. She looked at Jane, who was looking at a flower she picked before. 

“Jane” 

Jane looked up. Her eyes glowing, her skin wet, small curls of hair around her face. 

“What?” 

Max breathed. Was it actually happening? No, if she didn’t move, then no. But if she did move, if she did walk those three steps through the mud, if she looked at Jane and called for her, then everything would change, again and again. 

“I…” 

No words. No words? There was nothing inside her mind right now, only a buzz that kept on getting louder.

Jane was the one to walk the three steps. She got closer, and the noise disappeared. Then she got closer and closer, and things looked too much like Max’s daydreams. Their eyes met, fixed on each other, until they closed. 

No noise. 

They weren’t in the water anymore. Not in the lake, not in Hawkins, not on Earth. Jane’s lips pressed softly against Max’s, almost dancing. For some seconds, they separated, which gave them enough time to look at each other and to know exactly what they felt. Jane smiled, and for the first time Max smiled back, in a new way that didn’t hid sorrow nor bitterness nor sadness. She smiled back having tasted Jane’s lips, which were fruity and sweet. She smiled back, not really thinking about anything at all. 

“You have witchcraft in your lips” Max said in a whisper, holding Jane by the waist and taking her as close as possible. 

They kissed again. 

The boiler inside of Max exploded, but now it felt nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now this is a longer chapter! i wanted to make it even longer, to have more stuff happening, but see this is like the beginning, so there's basically not much going on. i suppose on next chapters more things will happen, dw. also thanks to everyone reading!!! you all really give me energy to write :)

**Author's Note:**

> this part was shorter than expected but dont worry, i have more parts planned!  
> also side note-- i use "Jane" cause I'm writing this from Max's POV, and i like to think that she always calls her Jane. Just a little clarification :)


End file.
